Helena G. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3861) interviewed by Peter Salner and Ingrid Antalová

Videotape testimony of Helena G., who was born in Varín, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (presently Slovakia) in 1913. She recalls cordial relations with non-Jews; her father's death; anti-Jewish measures after Slovak independence in 1939; forced evacuation from Varín; working in Žilina; former non-Jewish friends' hostility; transfer with her sister and mother to Poprad in March 1942; their return to Žilina; office work; volunteering for a transport to remain with her mother and sister; their deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; a privileged office position; using connections to place her mother in the hospital; her death followed by her sister's death; a Polish, non-Jewish prisoner helping her when she was sick; sharing food with friends; prisoners killing a Jewish collaborator; the death march to train transport in January 1945; arrival in Ravensbrück; train transfer days later to Malchow, then Leipzig; slave labor in a munitions factory; liberation by United States troops from a death march; traveling to Prague; hospitalization in Olomouc; staying with unsympathetic relatives in Bratislava one night; traveling to Žilina, then Varín; assistance from the local Catholic priest; and reunion with her surviving sister. Ms. G. discusses relations between ethnic and gender groups in camps, and reluctance of many to discuss prisoners' inhumanity to each other.